UPDATED May 7, 2014: Poll closed due to organised campaign to support Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson

Did Top Gear or Jeremy Clarkson hire some backroom operation to change the results of BFP’s poll? That’s a definite possibility.

BFP’s poll asked if our readers could hearing Clarkson saying the word ‘nigger’ in the YouTube video. For the first few days the results were running about 90% yes… but then we saw dozens and dozens of ‘no’ responses coming from two IP numbers in the UK, where the people involved were obviously conducting an organised effort to change the results of the poll in Clarkson’s favour.

Naughty, naughty!

So we’ve frozen the poll where it ended up, but our readers should know that the displayed result doesn’t reflect the actual views of BFP’s readers that is running about 90% ‘yes’ and 8% ‘no’ and 2% ‘can’t tell, too drunk to care’.

49 responses to “Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson: “Catch a Nigger by the toe, when he squeals…””

i probably could have forgiven him for the N word slip but taking everything into consideration [the nazi salute, black dog, slope comment and other previous incidents in the mirror article, I think he’s out of control and it is time for him to go.

Even at its ‘worst’ the word was willfully mumbled so he was conscious about offending anyone. IF the n footage was not supposed to be used why was it? OR if it wasn’t used – how did the footage get into the public domain?
Eanie meanie as we all know is a very old rhyme for choosing things. I agree with what has been said here and am reassured that the world has not gone totally mad.

And for God’s sake what’s wrong with naming a black dog after a black footballer?

I didn’t know the ‘slope’ word and am still not sure how it offends. I’m sure someone will tell me.

I note that the newspaper survey says that over 70% believe he should not be sacked. Thank God for CHARACTERS.

It is unfortunate for everyone that this became an issue just prior to Top Gear coming to a black majority ex-slave nation. Mr. Clarkson’s pattern of similar insensitive comments and actions over the years at least give some comfort in that he is offensive to everyone equally.

Blacks usually get a pass on this kind of thing, but whites do not.

It’s all good for discussion though and we can be assured that when choosing autos at Bushy Park, Mr. Clarkson will not use this same nursery rhyme.

Perhaps he shall instead flip open the pages of a book at random. Expect Little Black Sambo or Mein Kampf. 🙂

Ahhh Philip- well you need value for your taxes spent on UK’s biggest DSS family. Still don’t get though why if you substituted the word we can’t say for blanco none of us would care. So why is it, if it’s perceived slur on black people rather than white its so terrible? Seems rather biased and even racist!

Blanco is purely a colour description, it has no other meaning however the N words originates not only to refer to black people (colour) but also and maybe more importantly describe them as lazy and brutish (alleged trains)

“N***** is a noun in the English language. The word originated as a neutral term referring to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger (“color black”)” Source Wiki encyclopaedia
It does however go on to say its used as a pejorative term. It does still seem to me though the sensitivity is all one way. We get derogatory terms bandied about between “races” in the UK with English, Scots, Welsh and Irish. By and large we just jest it all. And where I live the N word is regularly used to describe a paint colour. Its exactly as on the can as they say- literally. It just all seems a bit bonkers. Anyway- whatever as me kids say- Clarkson has to stay or no Top Gear.

Indeed Timbuku one is in almost total agreement with your sentiments. The likes of Jeremy Clarkson et al will very much be at ease and likely to fit only too well in Bajan society, nasty, ugly and brutish as it can be at times.
The black apologists are crawling out of the canefields and woodwork to spread a patina of apologia for this offensive and vulgar clown (pragmatic mixed race person being an example).
One can well imagine the fawning and obscene grovelling that is likely to be evidenced at Bushy Park later this month.

Ahh and there was me thinking I was being fair, balanced, POLITE and questioning. Still, goes to show, racism, prejudice and ignorance reign in some quarters eh! Not to mention insecurity and inferiority complexes. I don’t know your history and situation- don’t judge mine Have drink on me this Friday sweetie x.

So OK…you’re playing golf with an oriental…err….should I say yellow person…..oh god no yangtse dweller,,,,,,,you say “I want the no 9 iron”. Will he think you mean his wife? Or that you’re gay and want his D…? Or that you’re going to cut out his eyes?

He will do well here with our own white Bajan racists and the brainwashed self loathing Bajan blacks. Good try fake Canadian tourist… You are betting that all of us would chose what ever little tourism money comes out of this instead of our dignity. You are almost right 99 percent of us would

You see how self important these people are? Everyone is a dick head or a dodo in their eyes. They have an abundance of superiority and seriously believe they’re more intelligent, authentic and sincere than anyone else. They talk a lot about reparations and repatriation and the African homeland. Most of them have never been there, of course, and will never go there. Indeed they have no wish to go there – but it makes them feel better and six inches taller if they say they do.

Clarkson is an immature, sexist, racist frat boy, chum of the odious Chipping Norton set. Of course he said it. He can’t help himself. Those are the words for that line of the rhythm. He sang them quietly as an act of defiance. He arrogantly thought anyone listening would be as racist as he is, and would hear him, but not loudly. I detest him and refuse to watch his silly “blokey” lads show for petrol heads. He thinks he’s really clever and should be given a pass for any of his nastiness. Certainly fire him, then prosecute him and send him back to Chipping Sodbury and let him live out his days playing with his toys. A great British embarrassment, popular with the ruling elite who are as nasty as he is. His two little friends avowing he’s not a racist is just rampant self-interest and blind loyalty.

“A great British embarrassment” – but not, apparently, to over 70% in the Mirror poll. Let’s face it. You just don’t like him. I don’t particularly but so what? As for the “odious Chipping Norton set” – so OK, you aint a conservative but you do have the cut-above-the-rest jargon as with “frat boy”. Frankly, you seem to have some kind of chip on your shoulder.

It is funny- if a black person called me a white honkey (I have the blood of at least four “races”) It has no negative affect on me. I couldn’t give a …..well I was going to say monkeys but some nutter will say that racist so I’ll say….hoot. So why do so many “races (aren’t we all black?) get upset about words. The Welsh gov even tried to ban nitty gritty but when challenged “why” couldn’t support some wacky theory so dropped the ban!

We are fast approaching the point where all British TV will be dull and uninteresting because there will be no-one left with any spark.
Paxman is going from Newsnight; Clarkson is under threat from Top Gear -who next?
I would like to think that we could give decent presenters like this a bit of slack but sadly, they will be whitewashed out of existence. Whoops – that’s probably a racist expression as well.

I noticed on BU recently that some contributors were still using the term ‘person of colour” – to mean black, brown or mixed though not I assume white and maybe not oriental. Now since ‘white’ is a colour, I can see why some might be upset since this distinguishes white from the rest – unless, of course, ‘person of colour’ refers to the entire human race. With St George I would want to say that the world is full of dull, miserable people and there must be room for ‘colourful’ people.
Then we have ‘nigga’ as a term of fun. I have heard the expression ‘raw chicken’ to refer to white people.

Now people like Captain Colin and his ‘friends’ wish to excise words by reason of being words from the language as in the rhyme and argue that anyone who utters those words must be racist. I say that is misleading, since, as the lawyers might say, this is not a case of ‘strict liability’ but rather that the issue turns on the intention of the user of the word. In that sense there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE that Clarkson had an intention to offend. And if the best they can do is to say he’s racist because he’s named his black dog after a black footballer, this whole race game, for that’s what it is, is to be treated in precisely that way. In short it’s a ‘try-on’ – and the sad thing is that the do-gooders (of which I am usually thought of as one) and the political-correctness people don’t see it.

Which reminds me to say f the word ‘slope’, two of us at least had never heard the word. What’s the evidence Clarkson had in the suggested sense? As for the Nazi salute – it’s pedigree is ancient and it raises all sorts of questions of how stiff and straight the arm must be to be specifically ‘Nazi’ in the intended sense. If you keep the arm straight but twiddle the fingers in a farewell is that it?

A person of colour! thought that expression was left in the sixties! Well my friends would describe me as being a person of colour although being officially white. I have both Latin and Viking blood (amongst others) but still have an un assisted tan on Christmas day- in the UK where I spend the winter. Also don’t think white or black are colours. No its chemistry you see😉. So in that case we’ve all been inaccurate in our descriptions. In my view one should swap the word racist for culturist, or even religion-ist (yup made it up) as that’s what’s it usually about.

Actually I’ve often used the word ‘monkeys’ – as in “I couldn’t give a monkeys’ – on another underground press and I’ve never been pulled up about it though that place is itself acutely conscious (which is the kindest way I can put it) about issues of race. You will be pleased to hear, however, that the phrase “white trash” has been legislated there as NOT to be racist. It must follow that the expression ‘black trash’ is equally acceptable. Err.

I think there’s a lot of sense in that which is worth exploring. One of the problems is that ‘racism’ has been defined in practice as white on black, at least here, and never black on white. The latter is acceptable, apparently, because it’s ‘pay-back’ time.

With apologies to Kipling (who in reality was some sort of emancipated
racist:
“White is white and black is back and never the twain shall meet
Until earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgement seat
But there be neither black nor white nor border, nor breed nor birth
When two string men stand face to face tho they come from the ends
of the earth”
Sort of having it both ways…..

We ‘adn’t good regalia,
An’ our Lodge was old an’ bare,
But we knew the Ancient Landmarks,
An’ we kep’ ’em to a hair;
An’ lookin’ on it backwards
It often strikes me thus,
There ain’t such things as infidels,
Excep’, per’aps, it’s us.

For monthly, after Labour,
We’d all sit down and smoke
(We dursn’t give no banquets,
Lest a Brother’s caste were broke),
An’ man on man got talkin’
Religion an’ the rest,
An’ every man comparin’
Of the God ‘c knew the best.

Full oft on Guv’ment service
This rovin’ foot ‘ath pressed,
An’ bore fraternal greetin’s
To the Lodges east an’ west,
Accordin’ as commanded.
From Kohat to Singapore,
But I wish that I might see them
In my Mother-Lodge once more!

I wish that I might see them,
My Brethren black an’ brown,
With the trichies smellin’ pleasant
An’ the hog-darn passin’ down;
An’ the old khansamah snorin’
On the bottle-khana floor,
Like a Master in good standing
With my Mother-Lodge once more.

Outside – Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!’
Inside- Brother,” an’ it doesn’t do no ‘arm.
We met upon the Level an’ we parted on the Square,
An’ I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!

I don’t really see him as being any more racist than was the norm for his time, and probably a darn sight less.

Clarkson holidays here frequently & Hammond (I was told) has a house here, so they know the Island well & apparently that is why Barbados was recommended as being a host for the show. I heard the N word (used frequently around this area amongst friends) was in the script? & after the first take he said something like ‘I didn’t use the N word, but having listened to it over in my ear piece it sounds like it so lets do it again’ has he been made to apologise for being set up? or did he mumble it? who knows, he’s a controversial figure. Did you all know there’s an area in St Joseph called Nigger Yard?
More worrying are the racists members of our Government I think.

@SW – Damn good poem, thank you. Racism is a peculiar thing. I was
born and raised in the American Deep South, and graduated school before
Brown vs Board of Education integrated the school system. Having worked
all over the Caribbean for forty years I like to think of myself as color-blind.
However, and this is to my shame, sometimes without thinking I’ll use a
turn of phrase or utter a metaphor that upon reflection makes me cringe.
(God only knows what it does to who hears it). This is not an excuse.
It just happens…

Such is life. When I was a child, there was a shade of wool called “nigger brown”. And then we have the lunacy of Guy Gibson’s dog, a black lab called Nigger, being renamed in the Stephen Fry re-write of the Dambusters script.

Clarkson is a grade A prick. He plays the “oops, I did it again” card too often. That said, the excerpt was not broadcast and is two years old. I wonder just who has it in for him.

There are plenty of children’s rhyming songs such as 10 little Indians etc. in the English language which could today be called racist, misogynistic or worse. What about “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, Taffy went to market to steal a leg of beef”? Mean to the Welsh, yet that was a child’s clapping game when I was a kid.
A person of Clarkson’s age grew up with these things. The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes is well worth reading as it gives the origins of these rhymes. In our modern world eeny minee has to be changed so as not to offend anyone. If you wanted to find a golliwog doll in London forget it yet at Ganzee in Barbados you can buy one! Of course Clarkson is not a racist. This whole thing has been blown up way out of proportion. What makes me wonder is the fact that he is due in Barbados to present Top Gear a programme dearly loved here and I think someone has tried to blow it for reasons of their own.
I really do think people are getting a bit too precious and PC these days. Arabs are called rag heads, whites are called honkys etc. etc., Irish jokes abound, especially in Ireland. In Italy those from Udine are ridiculed as dumb. In Turkey it’s the Laz who are mocked for slowness and stupidity.
In the Caribbean whole islands are defined as mad (Jamaicans) gossips (Bajans) oily (Guyanese) and so on. Shall we introduce laws to forbid these thought crimes? Examine our souls and remember how we define Vincies!
Going past racial and ethnic stereotypes, let’s look at how we express our views on grandmothers, teenagers, macho men, politicians, lawyers, unmarried mothers. Oh yes, we all have a lot to say as we categorise the churchgoer who is a sly one.
Let it go. Clarkson is not a racist, anymore than anybody else is guilty of thought crime. Why spoil the upcoming of Top Gear in Barbados?

Yea Clarkson purports to hate the Welsh as well. I might give im a right ander a a pub in Cardeef see, innit butt. But I doubt it- as someone said He is a character and no Clarkson- no Top Gear. I cant even stand his anti green exhortations- but what the hell eh. Clowns are funny and I’d have a pint with him any-day.

We are becoming far too anal in the quest for political correctness. The rime contained Nigger for every child growing up in the 60’s. It was recited innocently in playgrounds each and every day. It did not offend and it’s use has never made a racist!
This is a ridiculous and senseless media beat-up, must have been a quiet day for the tabloid gutter press!

I have noticed travelling the world that people from the UK and the USA tend to be over sensitive and take political correctness too far. They are ‘trigger happy’ in a sense to label anything as racism, Racism is the belief that a particular race is inferior or the belief that all members of a race fit a stereotype. So when you use one of the many ‘racist’ words with hate it is racist. But that is the catch, you are only racist if you are saying these things with hate and/or conviction. So to recite rhyme such as this and then make the effort to mumble the controversial part shows that he understands it is controversial and has made a clumsy effort to avoid offence. This does not display hatred or prejudice and is therefore not racist. I will admit that just because it is not racist, doesn’t mean it is not offensive. So I agree that he should apologise for causing offence because of a clumsy error in judgement. But it is not racist and people need to stop labelling any slip of a controversial word as racist, sexist, homophobic etc, because people who do this are just as much a part of the problem with political correctness we have today as the racists. Political correctness is about getting it correct, getting a balance, that’s why its not called political over-sensitivity.

fucking stupid…. If that had been a black person saying nigger no one would bat an eyelid but if its a white person…… oh no… were all so offended. I think its more racist that a white person is not allowed to use a word that is so frequently used by black people everywhere. Unreal.

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